J'Étais Si Jeune
by MissFiyerabaMeponineSherlock
Summary: Just a short one-shot about Fantine, starting with her first act of prostitution and ending with her death.


**Here's a little one-shot about Fantine.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Les Misérables or the characters.**

J'Étais Si Jeune

Fantine sat alone in the wrecked remains of an old war ship and cried. She had just sold her body for the first time, she felt she was the lowest of the low. _I've fallen so far..._ she thought miserably. She reached up and pulled off the bonnet she wore. She touched her shorn head. Her golden hair had been sold. Cosette had needed a wool skirt for the Winter. With the money Fantine got for selling her hair, she had bought a skirt for her daughter and sent it to the Thénardier's. She had clothed her daughter with her hair. Her hair, which she used to feel a coquettish happiness upon brushing, would keep her daughter warm during the Winter. She gently touched her mouth. Through her lips, she could feel the gap where her two front teeth should have been, her two inscisors, as that dentist had said. The two pearls that had beautified her laugh and smile were gone, sold. Probably to some old bourgeois that was missing his teeth. She had gotten two Louis d'Or for them and had sent them to the Thénardiers for medicine that Cosette needed, for some illness called Military Fever. Of course, none of the money she sent ever went towards helping Cosette. Cosette had never been ill. The Thénardiers' children, Azelma and Éponine, had been the sick ones. The skirt Fantine had sent was given to Éponine, not Cosette. The Thénardiers didn't care if Cosette was cold, they had just wanted the money. They were furious when a skirt arrived instead.

Everything Fantine had done had been for Cosette. She loved the little girl with all her heart. Cosette's father had left Fantine years ago, and his friends had left Fantine's friends as well. It had been some joke. Fantine hadn't thought it to be very funny. She had loved that man! Her friends had brushed it off and laughed. Fantine had laughed too, at first. But then, that night, she had cried herself to sleep. He was her first love! She had loved him like she would a husband, she'd had his child! But he had only used her. She was so young... She was happy, she was coquettish. A little naïve, but not too much. He, Tholomyès, was charming and intelligent. He captured her heart and then, once he was bored of her, abandoned her, taking her childhood innocence with him when he went. Fantine sometimes liked to dream that he hadn't left her, that they could all be a happy family. But, of course, it was only a dream. _Dreams so very rarely become reality..._

She looked at the couple of francs the man she had just bedded had thrown on the bed. _It's for Cosette..._ Fantine tried to content herself with that thought. The money would help the daughter she hadn't seen in four years, yet loved so dearly. Well, at least, she thought it would help. Fantine coughed weakly, a bit of blood coming up. She was quite ill and it just kept getting worse. _How did this happen..?_ she asked herself, _Oh, yes, it was Monsieur le Mayor's fault... He fired me... This is entirely his fault! I've lost everything because of him!_ she thought bitterly, tears of anger falling from her Lapus Lazuli coloured eyes.

"My, but you're ugly!" Monsieur Bamatabois said upon seeing the toothless, almost bald (though she was wearing her bonnet) Fantine. She paid him no mind and continued walking. Bamatabois enjoyed insulting the prostitutes. In his mind, he was better than them and, therefore, had every right to. Fantine didn't care. Her life was already filled with such miseries that she no longer cared what people thought of her. Bamatabois, angered that she had ignored what he thought to be a very clever insult, picked up a handful of the January snow and shoved it down Fantine's dress. Fantine screeched as the cold snow touched her bare skin. She turned and clawed him. Unfortunately for her, Inspector Javert was nearby. Fantine paled when she saw the Inspector approaching them. _No... oh please no! I can't go to jail, Cosette would die! All I want is for Cosette, for my child, to live a long, happy life._ Javert immediately arrested her while Bamatabois sneaked away. Javert brought her to the Police Station.

"Please, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, good Monsieur, please let me go. I have a child, a sickly child, Monsieur! She needs medicine, she needs doctors! She'll die without the money I send! What I did was wrong, I know! But I was very angry, the Monsieur had shoved snow down my dress and it was very cold! I reacted out of shock and anger, but please! I beseech you! Don't send me to jail!"

"Six months." Javert replied.

"My child will die! Please, Monsieur, have mercy! Please!"

"Madame, you have attacked Monsieur Bamatabois and will, therefore, be punished. Six months in jail." Fantine sank to her knees, tears falling from her eyes. _In prison I will only earn seven sous a day... My child is going to die... I have failed her..._ Her skin was feverish and each breath was a quick, laboured gasp. The snow had attacked her already weak immune system and destroyed it. Her illness was attacking her full-on.

At that moment, Monsieur Madeleine, the mayor that Fantine despised and blamed for all her misfortunes, entered the Police Station. Fantine didn't even look up, but Javert looked directly at the mayor.

"Monsieur Javert, you must release this woman." he said. "She has done no wrong."

"Monsieur le Maire, pardonnez-moi, but this woman has attacked Monsieur Bamatabois." Fantine, upon hearing the words 'Monsieur le Maire' looked up and said,

"So you are the mayor!" and she spat on him. Madeleine thought nothing of it.

"And I have heard from witnesses that he harrassed her first." he said.

"Because of you, I can't pay my debts or help my dying daughter!" Fantine said at the same time Javert said,

"But Monsieur le Maire, she has just insulted you by spitting on you!"

"I press no charges."

"She has broken the law! She attacked Monsieur Bamatabois. This is a matter of police regulations in the streets, regulations that she has not followed."

"Regulations which are connected with the municipal police and to which, according to the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and sixty-six of the code of criminal examination, I am the judge. Free this woman."

"But Monsieur le Maire,"

"I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of the 13th of December, 1799, in regard to arbitrary detention." he said. Then, looking at the sick woman on her knees, "Madame, you are free. I will take you to the hospital and then I will see to it that your debts are paid and that your child receives the care she needs." he promised her, gently lifting her from the ground. Fantine could hardly believe it. _He is a saint! I've blamed him all this time, but he is a saint! My Cosette will live!_

"Monsieur le Maire, you must let me see my child! I am cured, don't you know? Cosette is here, so I will be fine!"

"Soon." Madeleine promised her. Then he noticed her go pale. "Fantine?" She was staring at a man who had just entered the room. It was none other than Javert. _He has come to take me to jail! That evil man!_ Fantine thought, terrified. Madeleine saw Javert and then saw how terrified poor, ill Fantine was. "Worry not," he said gently, "he is not here for you." he then looked at Javert.

"Quickly, now." Javert growled. Fantine looked at one and then at the other, her heart pounding in her chest. _Monsieur le Maire won't let him take me... or course not! What do I have to fear?_

"I have one request of you." Madeleine said, "But allow me to ask in private."

"Speak now or do not speak." Javert snapped.

"Allow me three days to retrieve this woman's child."

"My child! She is not here!?" Fantine shrieked. Javert grabbed Madeleine by the collar. "Monsieur le Maire!" Javert glared at her.

"Listen here, there is no 'Monsieur le Maire' anymore, and there is no 'Monsieur Madeleine'. There is a thief, a brigand, a convict named Jean Valjean! That is all!"

Fantine sat up, her arms outstretched. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was a cry of agony. Then she fell back on the bed. Her head hit the backboard of the bed and then fell forward. Her chin rested on her breastplate and her eyes were wide, staring, and unseeing. Her mouth gaped open. The poor soul had taken flight.

Valjean, for we will know him by no other name now, pulled Javert's hands off his collar, separating them as easily as he would a child's.

"You have killed this woman!"

**And there ya go. Please review!**


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